"First Contact" - The rape of Riker

I’d want to know the details behind that show’s pipeline. We don’t know what it was, if Trek’s was longer because it had FX shots, and we don’t know how quickly a simple kiss could be worked into an existing story. Or hell if both writers were lunch companions and egging each other on to do something powerful. Plus, what were the ratings and demographics of the shows, and which had the bigger cultural impact because of that?

The kiss seems to matter to a lot of people, and I need more information before I think it’s all a PR myth put together later.

Might be, yeah. Depends on what the story was there too. And what age group and who the audience were.

Honestly I wasn’t even thinking about Variety, but okay, producers drop ads there because it does work too, or they wouldn’t for decades. A magazine everyone in the industry reads doesn’t not have an effect on it, and stay in business for decades. And it would only have to effect a single other producer to get the ball rolling.

Thanks, this is a valid and helpful point.

As one does in idle conversation on a fan bulletin board. Dude. Bro. Man. Herbert.

I guess kids (or adults) never talked about Star Trek then.

 

Was the other one forced by aliens? If not, it's a better look than Star Trek.

 

Race and love in the real world are far uglier than aliens making you kiss a pretty woman/man for a few moments.

 

Race has nothing to do with my discomfort at the imbalance of power and forced physical affection.

 

You misunderstand my point. I don’t know why they kissed. Did he, a wealthy white man, fool her, a poor black woman, into thinking that he liked or loved her, preying upon her using the racial and class dynamics of their day? No one wants to kiss someone by force, but I’d rather be forced into a kiss than be lied to and manipulated using personal and social insecurities and power dynamics. A kiss between professionals in a bad situation, to me, would be like a quick hug with a relative I don’t like. It’s not going to haunt me like the other thing.

 

I don't either in terms of context. I just know the Trek one gives me the creeps beyond mere "a kiss between professionals." I'm sure someone who watched the episode will give context. From the brief snippets I found looked more like classic spy style seduction than mental force for the amusement of other beings.

 

It should give you the creeps because decadent aliens telekinetically forced two professional Starfleet officers to kiss, but no I don’t think that’s as big a mindfuck (not for the kissing anyway) as someone using the power dynamics of class and race against you in 1966. The Platonians at least got their comeuppance; in real life that happened less often.

 

Yes, but then one is being celebrated as a great kiss in TV show history. Which doesn't do anything for the creep factor. So, I won't celebrate this little bit of TV trivia because the creepiness outweighs the history!

 

That’s up to you. But again, that they did it at all, first, affected a lot of people in a positive way. Hell, I watched it in the 80’s and thought it was interesting given how people felt about black peoples in my community.

 

I'm happy for them.

 

Filmed TV shows didn't turn around in weeks. Star Trek, like most network dramas, would assign stories/scripts in March–April and begin shooting late May–early June. They wrapped principle photography on the first 16 maybe a month after the first show aired. Trek's airdates were exacerbated by VFX so an effects-heavy episode like "Corbomite" aired 23 weeks and a day after principle photography wrapped. "Conscience of the King"—with very few opticals—was about 11 weeks. "Plato's" was shot 9 weeks before it aired.

As such, It's highly unlikely the kiss in "To Catch A Roaring Lion" was motivated by something aired (and ads run for) on Star Trek only six weeks earlier.

Anyway, the real point is the so-called kiss is no such thing: it's abuse plain and simple.

 

My thoughts as well - I assume the eps were written and shot coincidentally, each without knowledge of the other. And considering the forced nature of the Trek kiss, the Thief kiss would be the first affectionate interracial kiss on American TV.

 

If a man did that to a woman we'd be calling it rape, excuses such as "no ill intent" wouldn't wash there and they shouldn't wash here either.

 

The one here in which you're extraordinarily outmatched.

 

Excuse you.

 

Fascinating getting a bit of TOS production history, and I take it more likely that the one didn’t influence the other than before, but that is TOS history, not the other show’s. Maybe it’s just because I’m annoyed by what’s his face at this point, but I’m going to be a romantic about it and wonder still.

After all, we don’t know what lead to either kiss at the time. Why did both shows air such a kiss that same year – did the writers know each other, get high at the same party, attend the same symposium? I don’t know if there is or isn’t a connection or if there’s any way to know, but we find out about all sorts of things after anyone who cared about it is long-since gone.

It’s abuse by kiss. The kiss is the visual that struck people. And it has resonated through the decades far more than the later one on the forgotten show. I don’t understand why that is difficult to understand. No, it isn’t the fairy tale of a romantic kiss heard round the world that changed everything forever, anymore than Gene Roddenberry was a noble prophet spreading the good word about the future, but they still matter all the same.

Yeah, it’s another facet of the human experience. We don’t show that as easily today because we’re more aware at how much abuse goes on in the real world. But, yes, it is uncomfortable when you have to stop, and you can understand Vina especially becoming frustrated, wanting desperately to “finish,” so she won’t be alone with the Talosians anymore.

 

Other shows were poking around the kiss issue. The Smothers Brothers got within a hair's breadth of doing one in at the top of the season, some two months before "Plato's" hit the air. Someone was going to do it sooner than later. Fred Freiberger was trying some stunts to try to get the ratings up (which he admitted didn't work) and he flat out said he cast Melvin Belli for that reason, so we're fairly convinced that's why he pushed the kiss. BTW, an NBC memo on the episode cautioned that the kiss not be "exploitative".

And the issue with a kiss was the depiction of affection between the races, ergo miscegenation. Kirk and Uhura being forced to kiss isn't that. Variety rightly called the show out on this cheat.

Sometimes a kiss is not a kiss.

 

That's exactly the reason why I said earlier that the context ruins the whole thing.

Similarly with how the first same-sex kiss in Trek (Jadzia and that other Trill woman) was a giant cheat. It not only happened between two very attractive, very feminine women, but they weren't really homosexual anyway, it was just their "weird" alien biology that made them do it.

 

Whilst yes, there was a degree of ‘fig leaf’ for the networks, you should be aware that lesbians can be feminine, and attractive, and that in simple terms the characters were at that point essentially homosexual, as both were women.
(It is also a more overt redo of a similar scene when the Trill were introduced)

Whilst the context of the story may, in your opinion, water things down, in the context of TV and the world at the time, both these kisses were doing something. (If not exactly breaking as much ground)